Medical Claims From 9/11 Are Assigned to a Single Court

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Published: July 18, 2005

Thousands of lawsuits alleging respiratory injuries by firefighters, police officers and other workers in cleaning up the contaminated debris of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack will all be tried in Federal District Court in Manhattan, a federal appeals court in New York has ruled.

Streamlining the process for a tangle of medical claims by those who worked at ground zero and other sites where the debris was taken, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held on Thursday that Congress had pre-empted state law remedies for damages and that one federal court, not both state and federal courts, should hear the claims, regardless of where or when the exposure to the debris occurred.

The appeals court struck down a lower court ruling that had limited federal jurisdiction to claims of exposure at ground zero on or before Sept. 29, 2001, when the search for victims was ended and recovery operations begun. The lower court had ruled that state courts should hear claims of exposure that took place later or elsewhere: at transfer stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, aboard debris-carrying barges or at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, where the rubble was deposited.

But the appeals court said that Congress had not intended such distinctions of time or place in passing the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act of 2001. The law, which limited the liabilities of the airlines, the city and state and the owner and lessee of the trade center, directed that lawsuits arising from the terrorist attacks be channeled into federal court, and it set no time or geographic limits.

''Nothing in the language of the statute or the legislative history suggests such lines of demarcation,'' the three-judge appellate court declared in a 45-page ruling written by Judge Amalya Kearse, with Judges Jos?. Cabranes and Edward R. Korman concurring.

The appeals court said that under the lower court ruling by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in June 2003, one worker who inhaled toxic fumes at ground zero would have to press his claim in federal court, while another who inhaled the same fumes at the landfill would go into state court; similarly, a worker who inhaled smoke on Sept. 29 and another who inhaled it on Sept. 30 would also have to go to different courts, the appeals court said.

''We cannot conclude that Congress intended such differences,'' it said.

Lou Martinez, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the owner of the trade center and a defendant in the respiratory injury lawsuits, declined to comment because the agency was still involved in the litigation.

A lawyer for the city, which also is a defendant, praised the ruling. ''This is an important decision because it will ensure that all the litigation arising from the terrorist attacks is in one court, which will streamline the litigation and minimize the risk of inconsistent decisions by multiple courts,'' said Kenneth A. Becker, chief of the trade center unit of the city's Law Department.

Andrew J. Carboy, whose law firm, Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, represents 170 firefighters claiming respiratory injuries, also called the ruling ''very useful for all the litigants.'' He said it appeared to preserve all the state law claims and would bring the clarity of a single court.

Paul J. Napoli, whose firm, Napoli Bern, represents 3,600 firefighters, police officers and others claiming injuries, agreed. ''Our clients are going to be better served before one judge who's going to issue uniform rulings,'' he said. He suggested that the ruling might lead to out-of-court settlements. ''I think the court was sending a signal to everyone that there should be a resolution,'' he said.

After the terrorist attack, thousands of workers -- firefighters, police officers, sanitation workers, ironworkers, construction laborers and others -- dug for human remains and removed debris from ground zero to barges and the landfill. In lawsuits filed in State Supreme Court, many of them charged that the city and Port Authority had failed to monitor toxic conditions and to provide respiratory masks and other safety equipment, as required by state labor law.

The city and the Port Authority asked to have all the cases heard in federal court, citing the federal law that gave the government jurisdiction over suits arising from the attack. Later legislation to deal with liabilities arising from the respiratory cases set aside $1 billion of a $21.5 billion aid package to cover claims of injuries at the site.